The Section 251 budget statement contains financial information about the planned expenditure on:

• Schools budget
• High needs budget
• Early years budget
• Children's and young people's services

The Section 251 outturn statement provides the information on what was the actual spend:

• Spending by schools and the local authority within the schools budget
• Expenditure on Children's and Young People's Services 
• School level information, with a summary of individual schools' expenditure in respect of the previous financial year only

This information is used by the Department of Education in a number of ways, including to create financial benchmarking. 

The analysis planned budgets vs actual spend is also an important aspect of the work of the Schools Forum.